Solving infrastructure bottlenecks is a fundamental issue for the economy of the region, which today accounts for only 13,4% of the national GDP
Salvador – A mapping carried out by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) pointed out that, to solve all the transport infrastructure bottlenecks in the states of the Northeast region, R$ 71 billion would be needed to be spent on 196 projects.
According to Renato Pavan, president of Macrologística, who presented the survey of the Competitive Northeast project, after sorting by priority, 83 projects were reached with a total cost of 25 billion.
While BRL 25 billion is still a large sum, the return on this investment in cost reduction and productivity gains would be BRL 4,4 billion, Pavan said.
Solving infrastructure bottlenecks is a fundamental issue for the region's economy, which today is responsible for only 13,4% of Brazil's GDP, despite having almost 30% of the national population.
According to economist Jorge Jatobá, who, along with Pavan and Juliana Baiard, from Odebrecht, participated in the debate at EXAME Forum Nordeste this Tuesday, the comparison of the region's economic progress when compared to the rest of the country is sad.
In 1995, the Northeast was responsible for 10% of the national economy. In 2011, the participation increased to 13,4%. That is, the region took 15 years to grow by 3,4 percentage points – and a large part of this small growth is due to Bolsa Família.
“There is profound inequality in comparison with the country and Brazilian productivity is already well below the world's. Without a good quality workforce and without a good infrastructure, these numbers will not grow at all”, said Jatobá.
Juliana Baiard, who is director of Ports and Logistics at Odebrecht, pointed out that the lack of planning by the government is also an obstacle for companies when choosing where to invest.
“There is a lack of planning and there is also a lack of knowing how to identify the vocation of each place in order to know the appropriate type of enterprise. This all ends up delaying the execution of the projects”, he said.
Beatrice Souza
Source: Exam
